Document Type
Article
Department or Administrative Unit
Communication
Publication Date
5-31-2021
Abstract
This article applies La Boétie’s concept of voluntary servitude to public relations historiography through a historic-critical analysis. Written in the same Renaissance era than other early history books of the history of public relations such as Machiavelli’s The Prince, The discourse of voluntary servitude (1552-1553) reveals to the publics the power that would lie in their refusal to engage with the authority (or in other words, the state, the prince or the monarch). The result is that, through a postmodern approach of emphasizing dissensus, the concept of voluntary servitude and its encouragement of activism and passive resistance can be considered an early precedent of critical public relations theory. Furthermore, without being judgmental, La Boétie invites us to a reflection on the role of self-responsibility of the publics in their power relationships with organizations.
Recommended Citation
García, C. (2021). Challenging hegemony and power in the sixteenth century: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude as antecedent of critical public relations theory. Communication & Society, 34(3), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.15581/003.34.3.77-87
Journal
Communication & Society
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Rights
© 2021 Communication & Society
Comments
This article was originally published Open Access in Communication & Society. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.